The Shaw Brothers Studio

So many amazing and serendipitous things have happened to me on this trip, but this was probably the most incredible, and something I never would have predicted could actually happen. When I was at "the hottest club in town" the other night, I was introduced to William Pfeiffer, the CEO of Celestial Pictures. He's an American like myself, and has also been a huge fan of the Shaw Brothers films for most of his life, so he really does have a dream job. After we chatted a while, William suggested I come by for a tour! I told him to be careful, because I would certainly hold him to his word, haha! Well, he wasn't kidding, and today I got to tour the grounds of the old Shaw Brothers movie lot, which is full of so much cinematic history.



Even the front gate is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life! Security was airtight, but luckily I had an official appointment.



The "Shaw House" now houses the offices of Celestial Pictures, which has been working meticulously to restore, remaster, and release the enormous film library of the Shaws to DVD. That's no small feat, as the list is easily up there in the hundreds. They also helped organize the "Heroic Grace" film series a few years back, which brought brand new 35mm theeatrical releases of the cream of the Shaw Brothers crop to fans old and new. Just ask Dyer or Sadie, who watched 36th Chamber of Shaolin with me in Philadelphia one hot summer night and were blown away.



Studio number one, where many of the period romance and Huangmei Opera films were shot.

Ms. Chow and Mr. Ip were great tour guides, with him recalling fascinating anecdotes, and her translating for my benefit. See that painted-over window? It's on the far side of what used to be the accounting office on the lot. Apparently way back in the day, that little window is where non-salaried performers like stuntmen and extras would queue up to receive their per diem. Mr. Ip laughed as he recalled the length of the line to step up to that tiny little window.

Although no new films are being made here (all that takes place at TVB City down the road), a lot of things look just as they did when the place was still operational. This shed houses the paints and supplies that were used to make every backdrop in any Shaws film.

Ms. Chow was nice enough to suggest a photo of me in front of the Shaw House. Well, I certainly didn't resist the idea! I saw much, much more than the few pictures I've posted here, but certain areas were strict "no-photo" zones, so I'll just have to keep those in my memory the old fashioned way! Thanks so much to William, Ms. Chow and Mr. Ip for taking the time to make this happen. It was an unforgettable experience, and a perfect capper to my Hong Kong trip.

HKUST Panorama

Since I was in Causeway Bay today, I decided to stop for lunch and a leisurely stroll around the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Another excellent recommendation from my coworker, Louise!). Now science and technology is'nt really my cup of tea education-wise, but hey, with a view like this (and the close proximity to the old Shaw Brothers and new TVB studios), I could really learn to love the idea of studying to be a chemical engineer. Even on an overcast day like today, it was beautiful.



It's orientation week at the campus (many people were walking around with bags looking slightly confused, so I blended right in, haha!), and there was a big hubbub in the student union. All the various extracurricular clubs, groups and societies had set up booths to recruit new members. They were all super homemade and colorful.

Aside from the booths, representatives from the clubs were walking through the crowd handing out flyers, just like the hawkers who advertise for tailors and restaurants in Tsim Sha Tsui. I was heavily recruited by the Shaolin and Wing Chun Martial Arts Clubs, the Band Society, and the Economics Students' Society!! Well, they almost had me pegged, anyway.



Louise said the University would be a good place to grab a cheap, decent meal and she wasn't wrong. This huge tub of rice with delicious vegetables and curry, aalong with a small Coke set me back a whopping HK $19, which is just under $2.50 American. I guess poor college students are a universal phenomenon.

Another Movie Location Found!

Fulltime Killer is one of the more intelligent cat-and-mouse shoot-em-ups to come out of Hong Kong this decade, which is no surprise considering it's helmed by the powerhouse team of Johnnie To Kei-Fung and Wai Ka-Fai. Andy Lau plays Tok, a hitman obsessed with action movies, which makes for quite a few film references and self-aware asides in his voiceover narration. Japanese actor Takashi Sorimachi plays rival hitman O, and Kelly Lin plays Chin, a video store clerk who is involved with both men, clueless as to their true professions.


Here's a still from the film, as Chin (Kelly Lin) closes up the shop.


And here's the shot I took of the real Hollywood Video Club, literally just steps away from the Central-Mid-Levels Escalators! Special thanks to LoveHKFilm.com for letting me know where to look for this location!

This Time, a Music Video Location

Here are three stills from Karen Mok's 1999 video for the song "Back," from the EP of the same name. The video was shot in several locations in Central, including this sequence on and around a circular breezeway in Causeway Bay.




And here are some shots I took from the upper floor of a double-decker tram as it was barreling down the street. Looks like the walkway has been repainted now, changing from white to that pale, pinkish coral color that you see on buildings all over Hong Kong.

"San Te, You Have A Call On Line One!"

No picture with this anecdote, for reasons that will become apparent later.

This trip continues to get more and more surreal. So I go out for dinner and drinks last night with the fanboy's fanboy, Bey Logan (previously mentioned here). We're in a nice sushi restaurant in NoHo and Bey asks me what I haven't done in Hong Kong yet that I really wanted to. I sort of laughed and said, "Well, I'd really love to meet Gordon Liu, haha!" Bey doesn't even blink or miss a beat, but says, "Well, I know Gordon's shooting a television series for TVB right now, but let's see if we can get him on the line," and pulls out his Blackberry. Gordon didn't pick up, but Bey left him a message in Cantonese (grr, I really need to take lessons when I get home!), and guess what? About an hour later, we were hanging out at "the hottest club in town" (Hint: when your travel guide says that someplace is "the hottest club in town," you can bet your bottom dollar that it's not!). All of a sudden, Bey's Blackberry rings, and when he looks at the screen he grabs my arm and pulls us over to a (comparatively) quiet corner, answers it, and after a bit of Cantonese, puts me on the phone with the "Master Killer" himself, Mister Gordon Liu. Now Gordon's English isn't perfect, but he was able to say "Hello Jason, so sorry I can't meet you but I'm shooting TV show now. Maybe next time you call Bey and I come to see you!" I said a few sentences in my (I'm sure) heavily accented Cantonese, and then said in English that I was a huge fan, had seen all of his movies, he is my favorite martial arts actor of all time, blahblahblah, etc. Gordon replied back in two languages, "Do tze!!! Do tze!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Bye bye!!! Bye!!!" and then he was gone. It wasn't a face-to-face meeting, but it was completely cool to meet one of my idols. Right up there with the time I helped Beck pick out vitamin C in the Whole Foods Market in DC, but that's another story.

A curved escalator?

Maybe I just don't get out of the house (or the country) enough, but this curved escalator blew me away. It goes down one side, then under the marble floor and back up the other side. Crazy! This is located in the Times Square megamall, which has 14 floors of capitalistic goodness. Don't worry, my wallet and I were very well behaved.

Hong Kong Cemetery

Okay, another day another panorama from a cemetery! But there are so many amazing vistas to be seen in and around Hong Kong, and a lot of them happen to be from places of rest, so to speak. These shots are from the Hong Kong Cemetery, which is right next to the Happy Valley Racecourse. I was near the very top, and it was quite lush with trees and bushes (yes, Dyer, I was wearing insect repellent!), which is why you can't see any gravestones in these photos. Another place that was very quiet and peaceful in the middle of a noisy, busy part of the city.

Among the Stars: The Sequel!!!

So I'm leaning up against the bar at the 24 Herbs video shoot, and who should I (literally) rub elbows with? It's Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung, who has been in dozens of classic films, including two of Jonnie To's greatest, The Mission and Exiled. Although Roy has a reputaion for playing triads, assasins, and other assorted baddies, he couldn't have been nicer, and his English was much better than he said it was when we first started talking.



Then I step outside for a breath of fresh air (it was almost as smoky as Wong Tai Sin temple inside the bar!), and naturally I run into Bey Logan, a noted Hong Kong film expert and historian. Bey lives just around the corner, and of course knows everyone involved in the shoot, so he popped by to say hi. His 1996 book, Hong Kong Action Cinema, had a huge impact on me and helped me discover more about the films I already loved. Bey now works for the Weinstein Company, and with the introduction of the Dragon Dynasty label, is doing a terrific job of getting some classic films finally released on domestic DVD, with the respect and treatment they deserve. He just got back from a tour of various film sets around China, and shared some photos from the set of Jackie Chan and Jet Li's new film Forbidden Kingdom (their first collaboration), and the Korean Spaghetti Western "The Good, the Bad and the Weird." Good times!

24 Herbs Video Shoot

When hanging out with Josie, Conroy, Phat and Alex the other night, Conroy was nice enough to invite me to a video shoot for his band 24 Herbs. The shoot for the song "Respect Tou PK" (I'm not telling what that translates to!) took place in local watering hole Yumla. The shoot went on for much longer than expected, but there was free beer and pizza for everyone. What better way to keep the extras hyped, right?


In between shots, Brandon (aka Ghost Style, in the white shirt) kept cracking jokes in English and Cantonese.


Alex, the director, did all the camerawork himself, and this shoulder mounted beast must have weighed a ton.



Roy Cheung, Conroy and Alex share a laugh between shots.


Ryan (left) is slightly embarrassed as Phat, Brian, Jimmy and the whole place all sing Happy Birthday to him.

Two more new friends I've made during my short stay in Hong Kong, Sara and Raul. They are both from Barcelona, and Raul is just as big a fan of Hong Kong film as I am. Needless to say, we were talking non-stop. Props to Raul for spotting Roy Cheung first. He was like, "look at that guy with the ponytail. Does he look familiar?" I was pessimistic and said, "There's no way that's Roy Cheung." Luckily, Raul was right. Good eye!

All the Leaves Are Brown...

I found it! After several trips up the Central-Mid-Levels Escalators (and back down all those stairs!), I finally got a glimpse of the windows used for Officer 633's apartment in Wong Kar-wai's classic film Chungking Express. Supposedly this was cinematographer Christopher Doyle's apartment at the time they were shooting the movie, so they used it as a set.

Here's uber-pixie Faye Wong dancing around to "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas and the Papas.

She's wearing dishwashing gloves because she repeatedly sneaks into the apartment of a cop (Tony Leung) she has a huge crush on to clean and redecorate the place while he is at work.

Unfortunately, Cop 663 is so heartbroken by a recent breakup he is oblivious to the changes around him. You really must see this movie if you haven't already!

Faye peering into the windows of Cop 633's apartment from the escalators, which run right outside. Cutest. Stalker Ever.

And here's the real deal, taken by me in the afternoon, when the escalators run uphill (they only run down in the morning, to get people to work, and then reverse after 10am). There are near-opaque decals on the windows along this part of the escalators now (maybe too many fanboys were snapping pictures all the time, who knows), so I had to crouch down much like Faye in the pic above to get this shot.

Lunch With Martha

Met up with Martha again, this time for a huge lunch of Dim Sum at the Maxim Palace restaurant right on the water in Central. Delicious, and there were a surprising number of vegetarian options, too! Thanks so much to Martha for taking time out of her extremely busy schedule to hang out with me not once, but twice! Hope you'll give me a ring next time you're in the States.

My Token "Chinglish" photo

One of the items on this map now takes on a whole new meaning.

18 Legendary Weapons of China

I swear I wasn't looking for this! I came upon another temple on my way to Kowloon Walled City Park, and when I peeked my head in I was greeted with this amazing display: the basic hardware used in every kung fu movie ever made, including one actually called "18 Legendary Weapons of China," and of course it was directed by Lau Kar-leung. Oh, and yes I did check, and yes they were bolted in place. It's probably best for everyone when you think about it.

Chinese Christian Cemetery

Again, this is another place that is very hard to convey in one image (unless I can get access to a helicopter and a telephoto lens). Here we have the Chinese Christian Cemetery, built right into the side of a huge hill in Lok Fu. Imagine a Roman coliseum, but instead of seats there are just rows upon rows of gravestones, going up about ten stories, I'd say.


It seems in Hong Kong you've got people stacked on top of people from the cradle to the grave. There were even monuments in the walls of the stairs on either side, from top to bottom. I took a bunch of panoramic shots at the peak, and I hope to Photoshop them together in the next week or so to give a 360 view.

Wong Tai Sin Temple

I know, I know--another day, another Buddhist shrine, right?

Here's Wong Tai Sin teple, which unlike the Po Lin monastery, is dead smack in the middle of a city. Yet somehow, it's still very serene. This place is a minor tourist attraction, but hugely popular with the locals. I bet Linda still remembers an absurdly funny scene with Gigi Leung Wing-kei from a movie called "Fat Choi Spirit" that took place in this very spot.

Seriously, there was more incense smoke in this place than a freshman dorm on a Friday night.

Why I Won't Be Moving to HK Anytime Soon

I was zipping along the Central-Mid-Levels escalators the other night, when I noticed this sandwich-board sign for local real estate. Let me help you out with the math part. The exchange rate is as follows: 7.8 HK dollars to one US dollar. That means that...


This condo costs $935,897.43 American, and...


This one costs $1,089,743.58 American. Wowsers! Granted, this is Conduit Road we're talking about, so of course the prices are going to be outrageous. But I still think it's hilarious that even when you divide a number like 8.5 million by 7.8, IT'S STILL OVER A MILLION DOLLARS!!! I guess I really do need to start work on my Cantopop career. *Sigh...*

Not a Celebrity (That I Know Of)

Lan Kwai Fong is an insanely hilly part of Hong Kong Island that's absolutely jam-packed with bars, restaurants and clubs teeming with a mix of locals, ex-pats, hipsters and vacationers of all ages and nationalities getting their drink on. So I'm having dinner at a streetside cafe on Sunday, when right across the street this impromptu photo shoot starts taking place. The woman on the left was giving the Japanese-style "peace sign" and posing for photos, while the woman with the bag kept handing her new clothes in between shots, like sparkly gloves and wacky hats. Then they just disappeared. Maybe she's "huge in Japan," who knows...

Among the Stars

As I came out of the concert into the steamy Hong Kong night, I couldn't believe what I saw: Josie Ho was just standing around on the sidewalk, talking with her friends! It took me a while to get up the courage to speak to her, which turned out to be unnecessary, as she was completely approachable and friendly. We talked a little bit about some of her film work (she speaks in flawless, slightly accented English), how she prefers singing in Mandarin to Cantonese, and how Hong Kong celebs tend to be more down-to-earth than their American counterparts!


Josie was certainly down-to-earth, as she was happy to pose for a picture with me, and even introduced me to her circle of friends, including her husband Conroy Chan, who was in the boyband mockumentary The Heavenly Kings with Daniel Wu and is currently in the band 24 Herbs. After the concert, the party moved to a small club a few blocks away, and I was invited to join everyone. Needless to say, I was completely blown away.


Here's me with Phat from Hardpack. We talked about Hong Kong films for a while (he complimented me on my Cantonese!) and music as well. His favotite rapper? Chinese-American phenom Jin, of course!


At the club, Conroy (right) introduced me to his friend, actor Daniel Wu (left). Daniel is an ABC (American Born Chinese) who came to Hong Kong and is pretty much taking the movie world by storm right now. I complimented Daniel on his movie The Heavenly Kings, in which he and his friends pulled a huge prank on the Hong Kong entertainment circle by pretending to start a boy band, and filming the ridiculous results. I said it must have been fun to play at being a pop star, getting up on stage and dancing around while lip-synching like a teenager with a hairbrush in front of the mirror, but Daniel was quick to correct me. "Are you kidding? I was petrified! I had to do that in fromt of 40,000 screaming girls, it was craziness!!" All these people were so nice, with no ego trips at all. PS - Hey, Conroy, thanks for buying me a beer. I owe you one!

Hong Kong - Cultural Melting Pot

How's this for a cultural mashup? I went to the Hong Kong Fringe Club last night to see a concert by bands from Taiwan (Stay Gold) and Hong Kong (ATP and Hardpack), who sang punk rock songs in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English to a crowd composed of ethnic Chinese, ex-pats, students and vacationers from all over the globe.


Local favorites Hardpack rocked the crowd in multiple languages.


Lead singer Phat joked around with the crowd between numbers.

Then, there was a huge surprise near the end of the show when local singer/actress Josie Ho (who I perviously referred to in an earlier post), who is friends with the Hardpack guys, came on stage and performed a few songs with the band. Naturally, the place went totally nuts and Josie really belted it out.

Daytrip to Ma On Shan

Hey, now I have two friends in Hong Kong! Brenda is a friend of my great-aunt Katy, and the two of them met on a missionary trip to mainland China a few years back. Now Brenda lives in Ma On Shan, in Hong Kong's New Territories, and she was nice enough to meet me for lunch and gave me a tour of her beautiful neighborhood.

Here's Brenda and I in her surprisingly spacious apartment. (She says "hi" to Katy!)

Here's a view of her residential tower from the outside. It's literally right next to the KCR line, so getting there was a breeze.

And here's the incredible view from the 24th floor!

We walked along the beach to a small village where you could smell the fresh barbecue from a tiny restaurant and hear the rattling of tiles as a group of seniors played mah jong in the shade. This was a great slice-of-life afternoon and another thing that I never would have experienced just sticking to the tourbooks. Thanks to Brenda for sharing part of her day with me. Please look me up if you're ever in DC!

Double Decker Trams

The best way to tour the supermetropolis that is Central is via one of Hong Kong Tramways' doubledecker trams, which run from the Western Market all the way to the northeastern side of the island. That's the direction I traveled, and it took me from the very western and urban feeling of Central to the just-as-urban, but far more traditionally Chinese feeling area of Sai Wan Ho, which is where I got off. This is where the Hong Kong Film Archive is located, and it is a treasure trove of information on Hong Kong's storied film industry. It's actually the third largest in the world! Not bad for a tiny little island. Anyway, after the Archive I walked all the way to the next neighborhood of Shau Kei Wan, which is even less Westernized than Sai Wan Ho, although there still seemed to be a crowded McDonald's on every fourth block. Unfortunately my camera was out of power, but there were some great sights, and a lot of locals who gave me "the look." You know, the "we don't get many gweilos in this part of town" look.

Hey, it's Wong Jing!

While my celebrity stalking hasn't paid off (yet), I was in luck last night when I had a chance to attend a lecture by legendary local director (and occasional character actor) Wong Jing.

For those of you (IE most of you) who don't know who he is, Wong Jing has worked with almost all of Hong Kong's biggest stars in movies that shaped the nineties HK scene, such as Chow Yun Fat (God of Gamblers), Stephen Chow (Tricky Brains), and Jet Li (New Legend of Shaolin). He is nothing if not a populist director, and his popcorn films feature gritty action, zany comedy, sexy starlets, period martial arts action and brilliant parody, often jumping erratically from one style to the next in that distinctly bi-polar way that Hong Kong films often seem to do.


Wong Jing in one of his occasional film cameos, here as a high-rolling gambler and exponent of the mantis style of kung fu in the so-ridiculous-it's-brilliant Tricky Master.



And here he is in the flesh! Unfortunately for me, the interview was conducted in Cantonese! I was able to catch a few things using my smattering of vocabulary and context clues. For example, when asked about Hollywood (that was one of dozens of discernable English words peppered throughout the conversation), Mr. Wong simply laughed and made dismissive hand gestures, and then cracked a quick joke that had the whole place (except for me!) laughing.



After screening some film clips and talking with the panel, Mr. Wong fielded questions from the audience, composed mainly of college students. There was also another American-accented Caucasian guy there, who asked a question in English after apologizing for his poor Cantonese...in Cantonese, haha! Mr. Wong obviously understood, because he then joked with only a slight accent, "do I have to answer in English?" That got a huge laugh from the crowd (including me this time!), and he then gave a lengthy answer in Cantonese. All in all a cool way to spend an evening.